Tales of adventures in quilting, gardening, photography and cooking from the Kingdom of Chiconia

Nose to grindstone…

A gross exaggeration, of course.

What you see here is the result of an hour here, two hours there, inserted into the daily routine. But it’s been focused and purposeful. Most unlike my behaviour of past weeks, where I’ve ricocheted from one thing to another, uttering a high pitched whine of frustration, indecision and failure to launch. There was really only one way to do it, and that was to take everything down off the design wall, put it completely away, and keep out only those things which pertain to this quilt. I was able to proceed undistracted 🙂

Not necessarily the final layout …

I really shouldn’t be posting about this project here and now; it’s a ScrapHappy project, and should be reserved for 15th of each month, but I wanted a tiny brag, just to show that I’m getting on with my Stalled Projects (thank you for inspiring the new title, Melanie!). I’ll have more to show and tell on ScrapHappy Day itself, by which time there will of course have been considerable progress (she said confidently…).

Next is sandwiching and quilting. I’ve hauled out all my Never Ever Going To Be Used less useful fat quarters, and large scraps of fabric from past projects which I’ll never use again. They’re pressed and waiting to be cut, pieced and put to use. I love that the backing will be wildly random, varying from one solid piece of fabric, through large patches to lots of skinny pieced strips. Now that really is ScrapHappy! The light background showing through around each square (which is just my design wall) will be replaced by scrappy joining strips, so there’ll be a thin outline of scrappiness around each block too.

Finally, I’ve got the name for this quilt at last. It’s called The Grey Nomad. Firstly, because, duh, it’s got a lot of grey in it. Secondly, because there’s something gypsy-ish about the brightly coloured postage stamp blocks, and thirdly because it’ll be travelling widely with its new owner!

I needed a neutral to let the eye rest between the postage stamp blocks. White was out, this quilt is going to travel, black was too harsh and it was down to grey and navy. I just felt the grey was the best 🙂

Man, I miss my quilt. It was from the 60’s and made of horrible scraps of polyester in just a big grid…but it was HUGE and heavy as hell. I tried to repair it, 12 years ago, but too much of it rotted away. There was a pink bedsheet in the middle! Barely held together with random bits of yarn. Ugly damn thing, but I did love it!

One of these days I’ll be making a couple of black and purple ones for various family members who love those colours. Hmmm… what to do with all the scraps I’ll be generating…? Does it have to be huge, queen bed size, or would a TV-watching lap quilt size do it for you…?

I have dozens of offcut strips to be used up, so it’s an obvious choice. I think it’ll look good. I got 20% of the blocks quilted today, so by the time ScrapHappy comes round, I should have something to show.